Tulsa to try to "eliminate" homelessness

[sgrizzle]

The gist is that non-profits are putting money into building what are basically no-frilles apartments for the homeless. They are estimating 559 people without home at night and are shooting for 600 housing units. A smaller scale program is already in use in tulsa and claims only 20% return to the street.

http://tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=070617_1_A1_spanc56725

Thoughts?

[cannon_fodder]

I glanced over that but need to read the details, on the surface is seems like a good solution to the problem.  Hopefully, it is a SOLUTION and not a band aid - getting the people the addiction and mental help they need, job skills, and other assistance so they can stand on their own two feet.  The investment upfront should pay off for the community in the long run.

I've been noticing a lot more homeless downtown now that the weather is nice.  Well, I guess I really do not know if they are homeless - but more vagrants floating around spare changing people anyway.

No matter what is done, there will always be a percentage that either want to live on the streets or do not want to conform to the programs trying to get them off.  No long term benefit will come providing that minority with a  free ride for life.

[RecycleMichael]

I tried to mail some money to the homeless, but didn't have a good address.

This would solve that problem.

[Rowdy]

quote:Originally posted by recyclemichael

I tried to mail some money to the homeless, but didn't have a good address.

This would solve that problem.

Just drop off donations at the local Spirits shop.

[sgrizzle]

A guy with missing teeth, frazzled hair, and blue lips asked me for change a few minutes ago for a bus token.

How about those houses come with free bus passes too so they can't use that excuse?

[RecycleMichael]

I really needed the tokens...you didn't like my blue chapstick?

[TulsaSooner]

Whatever happens, they better not pick up all that homeless folk junk under that overpass on the BA near the IDL. That looks way better than the nice rock work they did under there.

[]

[AngieB]

I know of a place under a bridge over the BA that practically looks like an efficiency apartment. You can't see it from the highway -- the only view is if you lean over from the bridge and look. Whoever lives there has a bed, blankets, plastic storage tubs, everything he needs I guess, including privacy (except when dorks like me walk across the bridge and gawk). Would he prefer to be  placed in housing or stay under the bridge? Who knows.

I guess the apartments could be for those who didn't nab the primo locations under the bridges and overpasses.

[Wrinkle]

Kitty needs this one for her portfolio so on future campaign literature it can say, "founded housing program for homeless" no matter what happens next, which is likely nothing.

When news of this gets out, there'll be 600 more to take their place. Then, a perpetual flow as long as they keep building housing.

This isn't a solution, it's a problem.

In fact, it sounds so hokie that it almost seems a planted distraction, so I'm waiting for the other shoe.

[cannon_fodder]

Seattle is working on the same basic thing.  Except without any strings attached.  They are building free housing for the lost causes who will be able to continue living for free and not working while continuing their panhandling and drinking for life with free medical care.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-housing-alcoholics,0,3097991.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

Basic argument - its costing more money to deal with them on the street and in ERs so lets just suck up and give them a place to live.  

How about we stop treating them and let them die?  Rewarding drug addiction or drunkenness coupled with laziness and other problems with a free drunken stooper and room and board for life does NOT sound like a good idea.  Not too mention, where ever the "apartment" is built will certainly see HUGE declines in property values.  A halfway house is bad enough, but an 'all the way' house I would not want ot be anywhere near.

Before everyone calls me a heartless jerk, I understand there are some people with REAL problems.  Many are mental issues (though it is often hard to tell if a homeless person has mental problems or are just so drunk it seems like it).  Helping people is good, enabling is not.

[tim huntzinger]

As someone who worked for years at the Mental Hell Association in Tulsa with the homeless mentally ill this is right up my alley.

The problem with these plans are that even with proper wraparound services, the net result will be to reinforce failed zoning guidelines which allow multi-family units to be mixed in with single family housing units.  It is my contention that rental units in marginal areas are the single greatest impediment to regentrification.  A renter with a 30-day lease on a neighborhood has little in common with someone who has a fifteen to thirty year commitment to the neighborhood.

Priority should go to severe and persistently mentally ill whose families are Tulsans.  I can site many examples where people just ended up as a Tulsan, sucked the system dry, and then just moved on. I believe 100% of our homeless are mentally ill.  Why would one choose to be homeless in Tulsa, when one could be in Florida or San Diego and have much nicer digs?

Anyway, these programs tend to attract the higher functioning, more stable clients, less system-resistant.  The problem is that non-compliant folk will be refused services or get kicked out and stay/end up on the streets anyway. Problem not solved. All we have done is reinforced a failed policy of de-institutionalizion.

[Townsend]

I might've missed it but did any information give the location for this housing?  

I'm assuming it will be within walking/bumming distance of the churches serving free food in the morning.

Change?  Cigarette?  "My car is out of gas and I just need a couple of bucks to make it to my next drink...I mean destination."

[Wrinkle]

$27,000,000 for 600 unhomed is $45,000 per.

A bus ticket to Florida couldn't be more than $1,000, even if we throw in a couple of Happy Meals for the trip and an overnight at the intermediate Motel-6, and they'd be much happier.

That's before the taxpayer cost of "surrounding them with services".

[tim huntzinger]

quote:Originally posted by Townsend

I might've missed it but did any information give the location for this housing?  

All over town, typically the 8-12 unit buildings built in the 70's during the housing crunch, out-of-date but not too far gone to be too costly to renovate from studs.  Think close to the the TU ghetto by Lewis.

[daddys little squirt]

It seems to me it is an attempt to try and "manage" the homeless problem not eliminate it which is impossible. Kudos for Tulsa acknowledging a problem and trying to lessen its impact on a major investment downtown. Heaven forbid we take a perspective of cost/benefit analyses.


My feeling is that if we were to daily round up all these undesirables and transport them South of 51st to those pristine neighborhoods in Jenks, BA & Bixby, near the mega churches, this solution would already have been proposed.

I agree with one thing you said CF. Enabling is not the answer. So we better stop Trinity, First Baptist and the other downtown churches from doing so.  Yeh, you sound heartless. Beggars prisons? Stockades? Law school?